Solitaire: The Affairs, #2

By Barbara Harkness

This is a highly personal memoir of a woman finding her truth, and coming home to herself through her soul's calling to lead a solitary life, albeit a highly creative one. Barbara was renowned for her highly successful graphic design business that was responsible for the inception of the most powerful wine brand in the world - [yellow tail]. However, she relinquished the business for the sake of her spiritual inner health, along with her second marriage and perfectly constructed life. The book will take you on a journey of discovery; illuminating universal concerns of the heart, and exploring questions and actions on what it takes to walk your own path when you feel you are not living your truth.
She states; "From the time we are born we are on a journey. Many of us do not have the luxury of determining which train we will catch, nor which station to either disembark temporarily or where to terminate. In fact, many human beings don't have a lot of choices. So if you have the advantage of 'choice' in your life, you are fortunate, and I am one of these people. To choose (or not) is akin to Shakespeare saying 'to be, or not to be - that is the question'. Do we let life carry us along blindly following paths directed for us by our parents and even our own perceptions of a comfortable, but conformed life? We are not all the same, and I am not trying to advocate any sort of doctrine about 'how to conduct a successful life' or 'manifest your dreams'.  The book is quite simply a compilation of heartfelt chronological short stories created over a 10-year period of my life, and I write in the hope of inspiring others by sharing my gift of art."
Through painting and writing the author reveals her existential questioning, painting her soul's desire and search for a meaningful life. Barbara was also led back to her first husband upon learning of his inoperable brain tumour and went to care for him. It was through this act of compassion that she learned the (inner) art of forgiveness and surrender. Upon this return to one of the most notable and important social constructs of her life, and the one thing she questioned the most: marriage and companionship, gave her all the answers in the end.... to 'the game of life.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Harkness
• Release date: Jan 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645671216

Book preview

PART 1

ART IMITATING LIFE

Prologue

It’s a game, this privileged thing called life! A stage upon which we enact our finely crafted lines with other players - or is it all improvisation, making it up as we go along? The long game, the end game, games within games. Playing different roles and adjusting to the characters we are assigned along the journey. Then quite suddenly the end-game seems near, and you think ‘well that was quick, have I really lived my best life?’ According to Socrates The unexamined life is not worth living! Which was how I came to find myself at the mid century mark, and by examining my existence gave myself a great big audit of the heart. I chose to play the game of Solitaire - to have an affair with my own heart and indulge in the solitude and patience required for the ‘art’ to appear.

This story is that journey, from yet another ‘death’ within a lifetime, to the ‘re-birth’ of my true nature as an artist (at such a late stage in my life I might add). Better late than never as one would say! I reflect on my seventeen-year-old self, gazing out the window at work and thinking to myself ‘it’s just not happening here, so I’d better go and find it’ - my life! I resigned that afternoon from my job, went home to my parents and gave notice to my childhood as well. Within a fortnight I had left Wellington, New Zealand and my adolescence behind, boarded a plane for Sydney Australia and welcomed womanhood in an exciting new city where no one knew me. It was a brave decision, yes, but I was bold and confident and full of hope for my future (not that I had much of a plan back then). I was only seventeen and happy to have an adventure, which is my life - the life I have made for myself as a result of that brave decision. I was also being true to my nature, as my journey had begun.

Changing direction in life is rarely easy; this I know, as it took several years to redirect my ship when I got the call at age fifty-five to change it up, because it was ‘time’ - again! I needed to simplify, to unravel the tightly knit jumper I was wearing and lead a lifestyle free of conformity and others’ ideals. Moreover I wanted to be just me again.

Making the change we desire can require enormous fortitude to stay on track. Changing the environment or a job helps: that is the physical aspect. But it is the inner personal work needed to accompany the physical shift to walk a new path that truly challenges us to move out of our comfort zone. To get back onto my creative path as an artist, I changed my environment by selling the marital home and moving into my former home, a house I had always loved which had become my investment property upon marrying for a second time. I relished the idea of making it my own home again, a place just for me, and I am reminded of the writings by Virginia Woolf in ‘A Room of One’s Own’. These days a woman needs a backup plan, and ‘A House of One’s Own!’

My design company of twenty years had been a great success, with my notorious wine label design [Yellowtail] achieving superstar status as an international phenomenon. Nothing more to prove to myself (or anyone else) that I could create and run a business, therefore I gave notice (to the business-model me), and handed my design company over to my son, allowing the new guard to take over. Addressing my emotional and mental health, I dissolved my marriage of ten years to my second husband, knowing that the relationship had simply run its course.

I was to spend the next five years at art school, in an effort to re-establish my craft by being around creative people and to achieve a piece of paper that stated I had a Bachelor of Fine Art. This was just the vehicle - the process of intention that steered the mother ship in a new direction. But finally jumping into the life raft took another five years to arrive at a point where I felt I had finally come home to myself again, as an artist.

This is my story, a memoir of a ten-year period of mostly solitary undertakings in my life when I let my soul guide me every step of the way. I was led back home, to my gift and art practice, which became a highly introspective personal journey taken through the visual language of surrealism and catharsis of story telling. These short stories can be read in any order, because there is no beginning, nor an end, there is only now. Please enjoy!

Chapter 1

I had a dream, the wakeup call

"A dream is a small hidden door

in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul,

which opens up to that primeval cosmic night that was

the soul, long before there was the conscious ego."

- Carl Jung

I wake from a dream, turn to my husband and announce, I don’t want to be married anymore. The words spill out immediately upon waking, without any consideration of the consequences. The dream had exposed my current reality. I no longer recognized my husband. We were different people to when we’d married ten years prior and were now simply going through the motions of a conventional marriage. The dream had become my awakening.

I am in a wide corridor, the walls and floor are made from large sandstone blocks, the roof is high and arched, the building is medieval. I am observing myself from behind, as I glide precariously through the corridor. I am wearing a beautiful bright red silk dress with a long train, which flows behind me. I am the witness, observing. Where am I? What’s going on? What’s happening? I can sense this is an important day. I want in, - and so I slip into my body to feel the moment and understand what is happening. Aha - this is my wedding day! I now walk rather than glide, tentatively through the long corridor. A soprano begins to sing Ave Maria and I start to cry. Am I happy or sad? I don’t know. I am simply filled with raw emotion spilling out of me through my tears. The corridor leads to a quadrangle, and I finally recognize the place. It is the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Florence, where my husband and I had sat on the wall beneath the arches on our honeymoon in 2001. We’d taken photographs together there. In the centre of the quadrangle is a group of strangers, carefully watching my every move, my every reaction (just as his family did on our wedding day). The groom is in the middle, dressed in a smart black suit, his back is to me and he does not turn around. What am I doing here? I don’t know any of these people, and I don’t even know who the man is that I am marrying? Yet I am curious to know. Quietly I weep, and I still don’t know how to feel. This is my wedding day, so surely they are tears of joy? But no, - I decide that they are tears of sorrow.

When I cannot walk any further, I am at the group, standing directly behind the groom. All eyes are upon me now. The groom finally turns around - he is not my husband! Standing before me is a total stranger - shorter, thick-set, and bearded. The complete opposite of my husband, and I don’t recognize this man at all.

Rewind thirteen years: We are in a Bar, Bin 273, sipping wine, and I am admiring my beautiful Italian boyfriend of three whole months. The candlelight enhances and charges the atmosphere with love vibes.

He gazes back, we are locked in a state of euphoric consensus.

If I asked you to marry me, would you say yes?

Is that a question, or a proposal? I reply.

Well, would you marry me? I guess it is a proposal.

In the mood of the seductive moment, I said yes. But in the cold hard light of the next day I called and said no. Candles have a lot to answer for! I was not sure I ever wanted to marry again. I’d only known him for three months, and whilst we had confessed to each other we were in love, marriage felt wrong for me, outdated. I had my own home, my independence and was fully committed to my career. I had to be, I ran my own business and had employees to manage. Of course, there was time for a personal relationship and don’t get me wrong, I wanted one. But marriage? Not sure it was my bag anymore, or even necessary.

How about a relationship contract? I countered. The idea of a renewable commitment contract based on mutual consensus, where relationship issues are addressed rather than ignored, (or worse still, stacked onto the pile of regrets that fester into resentment). This seemed far more practical. Renewable on negotiable five, seven or ten-year terms, which addressed the aspects of lifestyle, assets, extended family, habits, health and apathy. Everything should be on the table for assessment because let’s face it, as we age, things change! Our bodies, attitudes, fortunes, health, even our extended families (and trust me these can be a major factor of dissent in second-time-around relationships) all morph with the passage of time. Who in their right mind would risk their lifetime accumulative assets to put them on the line, only to start again? But we see it happen time and time again through marriage failures. I think (and these are my own personal views) that in this modern age, which offers so much choice, it’s crazy to limit our ideals within the old-fashioned rules and regulations the institution of marriage offers.

I was not against the whole idea of committing to building a life with someone, but I could sense a certain pattern happening once more. My first husband had also asked me at the three-month mark to marry him. Ironically I had also met him at a bar (as you did back then). Was there a certain blueprint that re-occurred when romantic love showed up? Or was I just being offered the same scenario to fix. Like a groundhog day, but with marriage of course it goes on for years, and years and years, until you wake up! Marriage may have suited me for twenty years in my first marriage, for all the things it was designed for: to provide a secure environment to bring children into the world. But did it necessarily suit me the second time around? That’s a great big NOOOO, from me (with the benefit of hindsight). I was applying an old formula, when in fact I needed to move to a new level of existing and co-habiting. I felt that I had grown out of marriage because it simply did not suit my new way of being. In defence of my stupidity at repeating the same mistake, I was only eighteen years old when I first married. I was forty when I encountered the same scenario again and I should have known better, especially because I knew myself by then. Well, I thought I did!

I didn’t want to be owned again. I didn’t need to take anyone else’s name. I had a perfectly good name, which I used in my business. It was the same name as my two sons’, so why would I want to renounce that?

I managed to postpone co-habiting for two years by stating that a suitable courtship period strengthens a relationship. But sometimes I just needed him to leave, because I wanted my space and I was acutely aware of this. The separate house thing worked well for me so I really can’t explain how I let this rather surprising act happen, but it did. I felt as though I’d been badgered into the next phase of our relationship because right on the two-year mark, I was pressured into ‘living together’!

I purchased a rather large home where we could combine our Brady Bunch of four. As we both had two teenage children each, a four bedroomed house complete with a swimming pool seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time! Perhaps it was my need for more space, as the relationship happened predominantly at my house. Now teenage children don’t ask to be a part of their parents failed marriages nor necessarily want to be a part of their parent’s romantic ambitions with a new partner. Well mine didn’t and neither did his, so we found out after the fact. Therefore we set about doing what most couples do (because the children were never there), we renovated the new home.

The first year I remember well and with fondness, possibly because we weren’t married and genuinely did want our commitment to each other to work. The home was amazing. I had found it quite by accident, which had naturally precipitated the move and how we found ourselves playing house together. It was an Italian style villa modelled from a house in Tuscany, which had inspired the original owners to replicate. It was an authentic Italian style home with large porticos, pink rendered walls, Italian tiles, and backed onto a reserve that had a plantation of majestic two-hundred-year-old red river gums with a creek running through it. The trees were a haven for birdlife so the days were filled with the most gorgeous sounds of nature, and when it rained the creek flowed and could also be heard from the house. Sometimes this became a torrent, depending on the rainfall. It was a large home built in the mid-seventies with a lot of the original décor still intact, right down to the shag pile carpet, mirrored fireplaces, and dated Italian tiles, which of course meant a total overhaul was necessary to make it palatable to our tastes. For me, it became a design project, which allowed for my creative interior designer to flourish!

The new home was also good for my beautiful Italian partner, as there were wild olive trees in the reserve at the back of the property, which he picked and cultivated yearly, and gradually mastered the art of bottling olives. Each year the olives were perfected as the trees responded to their yearly cull, and his recipes improved through the experimentation process. He was a domestic god in the kitchen and around the house for that matter. He vacuumed, he ironed, he dusted, and he cooked. He was meticulously tidy, fully functional in the bedroom, life was good, - it didn’t get much better than this. Utopia!

Now when I travelled for business, (and as most do) I would tack on a little holiday sojourn at the end of the trips. When we decided to do Vinitaly (an annual international wine and spirits exposition) a year or so into our co-habiting, he suggested going to visit his family in the Veneto region. He had a large family of uncles, aunts and cousins. Even his ninety-four-year-old grandmother was still alive. Before we left, he suggested that we tie the knot elopement style whilst we were over there. I still didn’t see the point, and would have rather lived with the insecurity of whatever will be, will be. However, I also convincingly managed to argue the point with myself; he was tall, dark, handsome, domestically trained, helpful, encouraging, culinarily creative, intelligent, sex was good and I loved him. So why not marry the guy? We were living as man and wife anyway, and so far so good, so maybe we should take that next step? ‘Faciamo el paso’, is what he would say to me when we did argue, ‘move on, and move past it to the next’. And the next for us was marriage. It meant a lot to him, his Italian values. He wanted me to be his wife, and so I agreed.

We set about acquiring all the documentation required for a registry wedding in Italy somewhere, place unknown at this point. We would work that out when we got there. Divorce decrees, birth certificates, nationality papers, passports, all had to be translated into Italian before we left. I didn’t buy a dress because we were going to orchestrate it all when we got there, and only if we could pull it off that is. He wanted to buy me the dress and I wanted to wear red. This was my only requirement if I had to do this thing, I didn’t want a white wedding! I wanted to be a scarlet woman of passion!

Now pulling off an elopement in Italy is no mean feat. All the documents needed to first be acknowledged by the Australian Consulate; stamped and issued with a marriage licence. The consulate was in Milan, which constituted a day trip by train, presenting our documents, yet not knowing if we would receive them back at all that day, nor even during the time of the vacation. This was our first step into this venture, but I would have been equally content if the paperwork did not eventuate. We wrote our vows over lunch on the back of a paper napkin, the